Session 9- The Final Day!

Today was our final DFI day. Before taking the exam we looked at our final 'Connect' with Maniakalani. On Ubiquitous learning. This takes place any time, anywhere and anyplace. Rewindable learning has supported this.  When I go back to school I will remember the power of rewindable learning and implement this with my learners. Technology is a powerful tool that removes barriers, previously inconceivable solutions to problems and opportunities for new ways of learning. If it is worth teaching, it’s worth capturing.

On reflection of this DFI course, the past 9 weeks has allowed me to

understand how things in the G suit work in order to enhance my workflow and my children’s’ learning through Learn Create Share. I enjoyed learning more about tools which my children and myself can use.

Google Hangouts are a great tool and they were very timely to learn about. It has been great being able to use them to continue this course throughout a global pandemic! I look forward to getting back into the classroom to try coding out. I have understood more about the Maniakalani pedagogy and how it started and has evolved.

I feel very privileged to have had the professional learning opportunity that this DFI has given me. Now time to use it!

Ps... See my new badges on my blog!

Digital Fluency Intensive Session 8- Computational Thinking

Second to last session today, oh how fast the time has gone. On our connect with Manaiaiakalanai we looked at the kaupapa word ‘empowered’. This word was once agency but having negative connotations in our communities it is now 'empowered'. 

Using digital tools are not just tools, it is transformative in the way that we learn in order for it to be empowered for our learners

Our Chalk n Talk was Intro into Computational Thinking- The new digital technologies curriculum (yrs 1-10)

Children become creative directors of their lives. Rather than passive consumers.

The technology strands above now have two more added to them that is being rolled out this year. They are Computational Thinking (programing; input/output etc, unplugged activities, understanding human behaviours and how we interact with technology) and Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes (DLO's etc..).

For Computational Thinking, it does not always s require using a computer. It is learning to think like a computer scientist. See progress outcomes below. It is a way we go about attacking problems, and different again to computer science which is an academic area.

We had some time to explore some resources available for us. I saw a link about 'algorithms' and how they can create something. https://studio.code.org/s/course1/stage/6/puzzle/1 This video shows school-aged children creating an algorithm with pictures and then testing it our to see if it works. This is something I could try with my learners as it is at their level.

We then had a deep dive into the future of Tech (in reference to the Jetsons)we looked at all of the technology inventions within the last year. After this we explored some coding sites. I had a go at this https://studio.code.org/s/aquatic/stage/1/puzzle/1 which allowed me to code and then watch my Minecraft person move. As well as these ones https://studio.code.org/flappy/1  https://lightbot.com/index.html and https://game.kodable.com/play?hc=1&type=home&user=vfwn3fm&showSpace=world as well as Scratch Junior which we have on our Ipads. I also had a look at some class on-air sites for some ideas of how to teach Scratch to my learners.
https://sites.google.com/manaiakalani.org/onair/teachers/2019-teachers/goodwin/5

For the create part of the day I had a look at Scratch on my computer. I think for my learners' skill level (and my own) Scratch Jnr might be a better avenue to go down!